Rules Are There Ain't No Rules
by LadyDivine91
Summary: This is the fifth time that Oliver Queen has his superhero companions and their nemeses locked up in a battle pyramid for a friendly round of Superhero/Supervillain Fight Club. While trying to employ a tactic to defeat the team of Captain Cold and Heat Wave, Barry Allen thinks he may have come up with their Achilles Heel. Or more specifically, Snart's Achilles Heel. Coldflash.


**A/N:** **Inspired by the tumblr post post/150289314921/mightyart-otpmusings-halleydoedog-take-me and the Flash/Arrow Three Minute Fight Club video available to view on YouTube.**

"Hit him, Mick!" Len growls, spinning left, then clumsily right, aiming at the streak of red lightning zipping around above their heads.

" _You_ hit him!" Mick grumbles, faking right, then left, but only succeeding in almost shooting his partner in the arm. "You have a tighter beam! That gives you more control over your weapon than I have over mine!"

"When has that ever mattered before?" Len grinds between his teeth when he hears the sleeve of his parka sizzle. "Just…burn _everything_!" One more fake left, and Len smells the trim on his hood start to smoke. " _Except_ me!"

"I _could_ if he'd just stand still for one frickin' second!"

Barry stops running for a millisecond to re-assess his attackers' positions, and smirks at that remark. Right. Just stand still like a good boy so that the lunatic with the flamethrower can incinerate him. Not likely.

"Come on, Flash! Take 'em out!" Barry hears Laurel yell from behind her Black Canary mask. Barry shakes his head and keeps running. It's not like he's not trying. And he plans to…he just needs to get past the stream of sub-zero ice and the screaming ball of flame first. Not as easy as it sounds, especially with the two men fighting back-to-back, turning in a tight circle and firing non-stop, making the ground level of the pyramid lethal and effectively keeping Barry in the air.

From the corner of Barry's eye, he catches the Arrow – Oliver Queen himself – standing with arms crossed, overseeing the proceedings. From behind his mask, jaw rigid and lips pulled into a judgmental thin line, he looks vaguely disappointed. Then again, he _always_ looks disappointed. That's Oliver's default expression – resting disgruntled parent face. Oliver only approves when these Fight Club matches are said and done within the first fifteen seconds, and the only one(s) of them who can pull that off is Firestorm. Well, forgive Barry, but he likes a challenge. It might be sadistic, but he enjoys toying with his competitors in the cage, especially these two.

Well, especially Leonard Snart.

Snart has given Barry shit enough that he has no intention of making things easy on him – winning or losing.

Barry has tried to get the two men to accidentally turn on one another twice now, but for the most part, aside from one slightly scorched sleeve and a frozen glove, they're too in sync. This is their fifth Fight Club match, and that tactic hasn't worked yet.

But recently, Barry has begun to think of one that _might_.

He's been catching something in Snart's expression for a while now, visible even with part of his face hidden behind those dark glasses he wears. And it's not just here in this crazy battle pyramid set-up that Oliver had built in the underground beneath Star City. There have been other times, during other fights, or in casual conversations (which is probably what lends tightness to Oliver's jaw - his belief that by appealing to Barry's nemesis a few times for help, Barry somehow lessened his authority as a superhero) when Barry has seen _something_ in the aspect of Len's calculating eyes, or in the curl of his infuriating smirk. Barry would see it, then he wouldn't, so he thought that he was just seeing things – the overworked, fledgling superhero reading too far into every interaction, searching for clues to motivations. It never occurred to him to piece those moments together like a puzzle though; he took for granted that they would actually add up to a bigger picture.

Barry never understood why Len opted to stick around in Central City. Yeah, Len fed Barry a line about Central City being home, but from what Barry knows about Len's m.o., one and done was the way he worked. He didn't seem to have any loyalty to Central City, nothing substantial enough to make him want to make the place his base of operations. Sure, knowing The Flash's secret identity gives him leverage, but why make his own life difficult? Why stay in a place where he'd be butting heads with a nemesis at every turn? Is having leverage over Barry worthwhile enough to ply his trade in a place like Central City when he could be traveling the world, collecting the treasures of every major continent? Theoretically, that cold gun of his, paired with Mick Rory's heat gun, not to mention his sister's gold gun, is their key into any bank vault, any casino, any museum, any mansion in the world. And with knowledge of Barry's secret identity, The Flash would be the last person jumping to run halfway across the world to stop him.

So…what does Central City have that the rest of the world doesn't?

Barry doesn't want to speculate without more facts. It seems too ludicrous, but maybe he can find out here and now. Settle his suspicions one way or the other.

But if he's right, he can use it to his advantage, and not only in this arena.

Barry just needs some cover…and an opening. And for that, he'll need to expose himself a little.

"Hey, Snart!" Barry teases, halting for a second, then zooming to a different corner of the pyramid and coming to another full stop, one long enough for Snart to take aim. "Come on, old man. I haven't got all night."

"Why?" Len taunts back, grinning as if Barry is falling right into his clutches. He probably assumes that with these stops and starts, Barry is becoming bored. Boredom will make him careless. "Is it past your bedtime already? You got a pill to take?"

Barry grins wider than his adversary, preparing to throw a punch he can't wait to see land. "More like a date I have to make, so can we move this along?"

Barry didn't foresee that being as effective as it is. In the grand scheme of things, it isn't a k.o., but it makes Len hesitate, long enough that Mick's weapon, still moving when Len's stops, crosses beams with Len's cold gun, throwing up an incredibly thick plume of steam.

"Snart! What the…? _Oof!_ "

"Mick!?" Len yells, spinning in repeated circles when he feels his partner dislodge from his back. "What the hell did you…?"

Two things happen at the exact same time, so quick that neither men inside the veil of steam, nor anyone on the outside - even Laurel, scaling the walls like some sort of black leather-clad marmoset - sees. Mick Rory flies backwards five feet and hits the ground on his tailbone, while Len finds himself shoved into a corner. He struggles to see past tinted blue lenses covered completely in condensation, but he doesn't have to see to know that the man with his fists curled into his parka, pinning him to the cage is Barry Allen…nor that those are the Flash's lips on his.

Barry hadn't planned the kiss. It just sort of happened. The adrenaline of the chase flooding his body combined with the surge of triumph when his plan pulled off without a hitch, along with the 'o' of surprise that Snart's lips took on when he felt his back hit the metal bars, formed a cocktail too heady for Barry to resist. But the pinnacle of it all was the pause – that moment when Barry's mention of having a date after this caused Leonard Snart to falter. That second of affirmation made something inside Barry click on like a light.

The moan in his mouth when Barry presses his body completely against Len's turns that light into a ball of electricity.

In the midst of that kiss, when Barry tilts his head and takes it deeper, Len absently feels a hand cover his…and the trigger on his gun press. He hears his cohort, coming to his senses and creeping up behind Barry, hit the ground again. Barry pulls away with a smile and Len opens his eyes. The fog on his lenses cleared, a single peek over Barry's shoulder shows Len that Mick's gun is frozen to his person, and that he's lying unconscious on the floor.

It also proves that _this_ , whatever Barry's doing, is part of the game. He's figured Len out.

Now Len has to decide what he wants to do about that.

"Well it seems like you've got the upper hand, Flash," he sneers, except that with the spark from Barry's lips still buzzing underneath his skin, he can't seem to make it sound as venomous as he'd intended.

"It seems like I do," Barry whispers, too intimately considering their current circumstances.

"What are you gonna do, _Barry_?" Len returns low, dangling the name like a threat over Barry's head. Seems like it might be time to renegotiate the terms of their agreement. Barry is curious what Snart might want for his silence this time. "You gonna break my neck?"

Barry rolls his eyes. This man…always with the drama. "I'm not going to break your neck," Barry says, breathing heavy, racing heart audible when he opens his mouth. "But I am going to knock you out."

"Right," Len scoffs. "And how do you…"

Len doesn't finish. He doesn't even see Barry move before it happens, Barry's forehead coming down on the bridge of Len's nose. A crack, a sharp pain, a roar of laughter…

…another quick kiss…

…and then everything goes black.


End file.
